Friday, October 16, 2009

These Fans Are Douchers

Note: This list is in no particular order

Cincinnati Bengals Fans

Tigers can't change their stripes, and Cincinnati Bengals fans can't change how fickle they are. During the lean years of futility in the franchise history, in which the team posted 14 consecutive losing seasons, seeing a Bengals jersey on the street happened about as many times as Pete Rose turns down a bet ... very rarely. Now that Marvin Lewis has brought the Bengals back to the elite levels of the NFL, the city is awash in a hyperactive frenzy of orange and black in one of the most sickeningly rampant cases of bandwagon jumping ever seen in professional sports.

Cleveland Browns Fans

And now, for something completely different. Browns fans are the opposite of Bengals fans. Loyal to a fault, Browns fans suffer through year upon year of futility and an existence where the Super Bowl is Kryptonite -- withering and crippling the team whenever they get close to it. Despite all the losses, Browns fans still pack the stadium year after year and rabidly support their team with a passion seen in few other NFL cities. Sounds commendable, right? Well, it was, until things started to take weird and dark turns over the past couple of years. Reportedly, last year when Center LeCharles Bentley went down with a season-ending knee injury, seven fans had to be talked off of a local bridge in a three-hour time span. Add incidents like that to years of battery-packed snowballs hurled at opposing players (and referees) and other strange and inexplicable behavior from the Dawg Pound, and Browns fans land themselves on this list.

Chicago Cubs Fans

Another favorite team of mine, but Bartman alone is enough to put Cubs fans on this list. No other group of fans can lay claim to directly ruining an imminent championship victory. Of course, even that pales in comparison to the perplexing story of the infamous goat fan ... what other team can boast fans in its history that thought it would be a fun idea to bring livestock to a sporting event? Then to take the absurdity even further, to put a curse on the team that has lasted 62 years and counting. Fan history of the Cubs also has a dark element with the shooting of Billy Jurge in 1932 by a female fan, yes, inspiring the scene in "The Natural."

Oakland Raiders Fans

There's nothing worse than someone who acts tough when they are as soft as a marshmallow. Despite the thug biker, hard-as-nails, psychotic look that Black Hole members have, their team on the field is a big giant teddy bear. With a domineering owner who seems intent on running his beloved franchise into the ground, Raiders Nation looks doomed to an endless downward spiral ... destined to become what the Bucs were in the '80s and what the Bengals were in the '90s. Acting tough and loud as a fan when your team is dominant ... or at least competent ... is one thing, but to do so when your team stinks is a laughable exercise in humiliation.

Duke Fans

One of the most hated group of fans, outside their home turf, of any sports team out there. Hatred of Duke sports runs so hot it even got the lacrosse players in trouble, for a moment. But what is it about Duke fans that makes them so irritating? The ridiculously annoying Cameron Crazies are a good start. Is there anything more annoying than watching a Duke game and having to sit through hours of incessant jumping and droning? Factor in the over-confident, sometimes snobby, always entitled attitude of Duke fans in general and it's clear why Duke fans made the list..

New York Yankees Fans

Speaking of entitled, let's talk about Yankees fans. Yes, we understand that you have the most storied and decorated team in North American sports history; you don't have to keep rubbing it in our faces. Getting a Yankees fan to shut up about their team is like stopping a train with your bare hands. However, all this pales in comparison to the insidious, destructive nature of fandom in New York. No matter how good their organization as a whole is, New York fans will turn on a player in seconds. Sports media and fans in New York exhibit so much hostility and anger toward the team they profess to love that it defies human comprehension.

Philadelphia Eagles Fans

The only place where simultaneous love-hate for a professional team runs stronger and more volatile than in New York is Philadelphia. Listening to sports talk radio in Philadelphia is like watching an angry mob torching the stadium. Of course, the incident of fans throwing snowballs and booing on Santa Claus deserves mention here, also, as does the court that was built into Veterans Stadium to process violent and unruly fans on the spot. When your stadium needs a judge, that's a bad sign.

Florida Marlins Fans

Yes, both of you. By far the smallest group of fans on the list, it is, in fact, their lack of size and enthusiasm that put them on this list. As much as fans who abandon their teams when times are bad deserve to be on this list, Marlins fans deserve to be on this list, because they can't even show up when their team is good. Oh, sure, they might show up at a World Series game every five years, but the rest of the time, they apparently don't know the team exists.

Watching a regular-season Marlins home game is the most depressing thing in the sports universe. A giant, blinding, orange stadium that reportedly has 3,000 fans in it, but looks more like 200. Montreal was a better home for baseball than Miami is. To say that Marlins fans don't deserve the franchise they have gotten is the biggest understatement of the year. What a bitter irony that the Marlins won the 2003 World Series for fans who couldn't have cared less when die-hard, long-suffering Cubs fans would have given their first born for a chance at the championship.

Toronto Maple Leaf Fans

Delusional idiots who constantly inflate the quality of their team through constant trash talk. Have 0 judge of talent and live on past accomplishments like no other fan base in sports. Quick to tell you their team has the 2nd most Stanley Cups in the league but will leave out the fact they haven't been relevant since before Vietnam. Their arena is more like a library and their ticket prices are the highest in the league. If this list was in order Leaf fans would occupy the top 3 spots. Douchers, every last one of them.